


This Night, This Light

by incorrectbatfam



Category: DCU (Comics), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Character Study, Established Relationship, M/M, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:15:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24227956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incorrectbatfam/pseuds/incorrectbatfam
Summary: To think, he almost lost the best thing to ever happen to him.
Relationships: Bart Allen/Jaime Reyes
Comments: 6
Kudos: 57





	This Night, This Light

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to @bisexualoftheblade for the beta
> 
> Title inspired by Fallingforyou by The 1975

Next to him, Bart snores softly.

Jaime is wide awake. It’s early—not even midnight—and he’s not tired yet. That evening’s mission was harder on the speedster than it was on him. He knows his boyfriend needs all the rest in the world.

Tangled together in the sheets, Jaime watches.

A smile forms on his lips as he interlaces their fingers. In the dark, he can see the steady rise and fall of the other man’s chest. Comforting silence drapes over them like a thick duvet, save for a soft humming from the vents and the distant sounds of the city.

Jaime places a tiny kiss on each of Bart’s knuckles.

After all this time, he still finds it hard to believe that Bart Allen loves him back. Every time he looks at the still-too-hyperactive speedster, he’s reminded of how someone traversed the multiverse for him. How someone who was on a mission to kill him simply...chose not to. Every time Jaime looks at him, he’s reminded of how Bart not only faced his biggest fear, but befriended it. Fell in love with it. Jaime’s not sure if he would do the same if he were Bart.

And every day Jaime feels luckier than ever because of it.

Their friends tease them all the time. Gar tells them to get a room every time they do something remotely couple-y, even holding hands. Cassie proclaims them as her OTP (Jaime’s still not sure what that means). Tim made an official tower rule stating Kid Flash and Blue Beetle can’t be separated on missions, and Kon seconded it after hearing too much whining over the comms. Jaime takes it as a compliment. It means he’s doing his job right, loving Bart so much that not a single person in the world can miss it.

The support is there. It’s in the way Kon allows them some private time and it’s in the way M’gann always seems to offer the perfect advice.

It’s in their families, in how two houses intertwine in ways Jaime never thought possible.

Jaime’s father is probably the most reluctant, and Jaime doesn’t blame the man. Growing up in another time, another country, with a devout religious upbringing does that to people. Even if Alberto Reyes is a little confused, he’s making an effort. Like the time he tried to give Bart the shovel talk, much to everyone’s embarrassment. Still, that’s more than a son could ask for. Jaime’s mother was easier to get through—her cousin is openly lesbian and she was the first to accept that even before the turn of the century. Milagro equally so, because by the time Jaime and Bart came out she was already in high school with a diverse friend group of her own.

Of all the speedsters, Wally West was the most wary at first. Not because Bart’s gay—everyone kind of already knew. Wally was skeptical of Jaime, and more specifically the scarab. Again, it’s not something Jaime can blame. Everyone has bad memories of the Reach.

Nonetheless, the Allens welcomed Jaime with open arms. Half-serious “don’t break his heart” threats aside (like he would even dream of such a crime), he fits in with the Flashes surprisingly well. Barry often takes him out for drinks and long walks just to talk and Iris, Artemis, and Joan give Jaime the much-needed (and at times hilariously conflicting) advice for dating a speedster.

Jaime’s heard a lot of nightmare in-law stories, but he can’t imagine the West-Allens fitting that profile. He adores them almost as much as he adores Bart.

They’re the people that he wants to bring his kids to on Christmas.

The thought doesn’t surprise or scare Jaime in the slightest.

Sure, they’re superheroes, but they’re also getting older. More than once Jaime expressed the desire to retire, and Bart brought up the topic of adoption a couple times. After all they’d been through, he and Bart deserve it. They deserve a happy family and white picket fence and peace.

The moon is full tonight. A super moon, or a “gigantic super awesome crash moon”, as Bart calls it. The room is bathed in a soft silver glow, highlighting the features like the noir romances Bianca watches. Jaime scoots closer, until their bodies are flush and he could feel the younger man’s warm breath against his neck. He wraps his arms around the speedster, holding him close like a teddy bear. 

To think, he almost lost the best thing to ever happen to him.

Images of the Reach flood Jaime’s memory. A voice whispers that he’s a failure, that he’s not the fighter everyone needs, and it sounds an awful lot like the Ambassador.

Jaime wants to cry and scream and tear his hair out over everything he did. Tye’s capture, Bart’s hellish future-past, everything is the big bad Blue Beetle’s fault.

Bart tells him not to dwell on the past but Jaime can’t help it. Not when he sees the faded scars on his lover’s skin. Scars that he caused. Scars that will never fully heal because of him. Scars that Jaime will spend a lifetime trying to make up for even though he knows he could never come close to compensating the speedster.

Yet, he thinks, what if the Reach still succeeded despite time travel intervention?

What if they never got Khaji Da off mode?

What if, when Impulse was pinned to the wall, Jaime lifted the blade like he was told and–

Bart shifts, mumbling, “Timmy gimme my Chicken Whizzies,” and the older man visibly relaxes.

Bart’s here, Jaime reminds himself. Bart’s here and safe and happy and Jaime’s determined to keep it that way. It’s the bare minimum he could do for someone who saved him from an eternity of imprisonment and slavery.

The speedster snuggles closer, now resting against Jaime’s chest. Jaime smiles and gently places a kiss on the top of his  _ corazón’s _ head.

Here and now is all that matters. It’s him and his  _ amor _ against the world and nothing can get in their way.

Jaime’s eyes slide shut. His last thought before he drifts off is, “I’m gonna marry this man.”

Next to him, Bart snores softly.


End file.
